Posted On: Tuesday - February 7th 2023 3:49PM MST
In Topics: Music China Geography Zhou Bai Dien
That's "92 Balloons", in English. ("Luft" is "air".) We'll get to that number shortly.
OK, first of all, they've got to be just fucking with us, right? I mean spy satellites are pretty damned good now, and they will be where they are supposed to be based on orbital mechanics.
At the same time, there are over 100,000 Chinese engineering students in the US, with 10's of thousands more Post-Docs, Chinese Nationals with Green Cards, and then those working long-term in National Labs and such. Even one in a hundred of them working for the CCP makes a thousand or two spies. (Peak Stupidity one case here, but VDare, where we got that post from, has plenty of other stories.**) I'm pretty sure these "students" and "researchers" can get a lot more important information for the CCP than a big white balloon sailing across freaking Montana.
Still, the idea is to protect one's territory from invasion, something hard to do in space, but not so hard with this not-so-maneuverable contraption. (People have noted the solar panels and talked about motors, but drag goes up with speed squared, so it'd take a lot of power to overcome any decent upper-level winds trying to steer that huge sphere around!)
Maybe it did get here by error. So what? It's humiliating to see that foreign object floating above, just as with a neighbors drone over one's yard. This thing was well out of shotgun range though, so you get the Air Force to easily take it out. We know Chinese would do the same in similar circumstances, laughable NY Post article quote - China accuses US of indiscriminate use of force over balloon, aside.
Why did Commander-in-Chief Bai Dien wait so long? My point today, which got greatly sidetracked from already, is one simple one. That excuse of not wanting to hurt people or property on the ground is bullshit. There's a lot of land out there, most especially in the West.
Stuff comes down from space, and we don't always know where on the ground or in the ocean it's going to end up. Airplanes drop off parts occasionally, on which some mechanic forgot to take care of few fasteners. Nobody besides a wishful-thinking purchasing department cares where they end up. (Got some funny stories from the airborne freight world, but I'll hold off.) Skydivers drop all kinds of stuff they are playing with (a hula hoop is the one I remember), and they are very lucky if anyone ever finds any of it.
Let's just talk balloon payloads, since the news is all "balloons, balloons" these days. For about 90(!) years, NOAA***/Nat'l Weather Service has been releasing 2 weather balloons daily in 92 locations, spread out around the US. I do mean spread out, as the only launch I've seen was in Western Washington State, in Quillayute to the west of the Olympic Mountains. That is truly nowwheresville. (Because Washington, FS runs the show, the balloons are launched everywhere right near 7A and 7P EDT (6/6 EST), so that dude had to launch his next one at 4 in the morning. It's part time, but not bad work, compared to say, fast food...
As per this NOAA/NWS quick, nicely-written page, the radiosonde payloads get Temperature, Dew Point, Pressure readings, along with wind velocity (velocity means direction AND speed)**** as they rise from the surface to 100,000 ft and stay aloft for a couple of hours.
Now, the gentleman in Quillayute told me these payloads (with return info on them) were rarely ever sent back in. The page above says 20%, though. (Perhaps they have locator beacons now.) Granted some hikers or ranchers may want nice souvenirs, but most of them have probably never been seen. That's most of 92 of them daily, dropped onto the continental US.
These are small items now - due to improving electronics, the payloads have gone from 2 lb. to 4 oz since the 1990s - but the point is, there's lots of room (if we would KEEP it that way), and this was not a real worry regarding the wait of days to shoot the Chinese balloon (one of them, so far) over the ocean off of the Carolina coast. Did they want to make it easier to retrieve the payload? That's a legitimate concern. Another legitimate concern that the Chief Executive/Commander-in-Chief may have is that videos of his son with coke and underage girls in China don't suddenly go viral. Xi says "Jiamp!" and Bai Dien asks "Hao hai, Xir?!"
As usual, the post got longer than I'd expected. I'll put up the song with lyrics in the next post.
PS: I just learned that 25% of the weather balloons are now autolaunched. With the filling of the balloons and all, that'd have been a cool engineering project. What happened, they could find Guatemalans to do the job?
* Work on it a bit first, before asking in the comments. OK, hint, it is under the ocean - only 40-something feet though, with the continental shelf and all. Hint 2, the guy sang for The Monkees.
** There's also the much more commonplace industrial espionage. Peak Stupidity has an example from personal knowledge in Chinese grad students and airbag espionage.
*** That's one of the very few US Feral Gov't agencies Peak Stupidity looks with favor on.
**** Here's where I wonder what they did for P and Winds aloft before GPS. Without GPS, with its pretty accurate altitude determination (nowadays), altitude is obtained FROM pressure, so how does one get P v Altitude? For the winds, were these tracked with triangulation for a while? Now, on-board GPS position can be sent. I wish I could remember all thatthe guy in Quillayute said.
Comments:
Adam Smith
Wednesday - February 8th 2023 10:06AM MST
PS: Good Morning, everyone,
"Did the link go to the right post page?" Yes it did...
https://www.peakstupidity.com/blogworks.php?action=viewbpost&id=2203
I haven't seen the TeeVee people this worked up about a balloon since Terri Schiavo.
I agree with The Alarmist. Would have been more fun if the Chinese sent a red balloon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-qfzH0vnOs
If HAARP can cause an earthquake in Türkiye/Syria, why couldn't they use it to shoot down the balloon?
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/conspiracy-theories-abound-u-s-military-closes-haarp-n112576
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/haarp-begin-largest-set-experiments-its-new-observatory
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"Did the link go to the right post page?" Yes it did...
https://www.peakstupidity.com/blogworks.php?action=viewbpost&id=2203
I haven't seen the TeeVee people this worked up about a balloon since Terri Schiavo.
I agree with The Alarmist. Would have been more fun if the Chinese sent a red balloon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-qfzH0vnOs
If HAARP can cause an earthquake in Türkiye/Syria, why couldn't they use it to shoot down the balloon?
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/conspiracy-theories-abound-u-s-military-closes-haarp-n112576
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/haarp-begin-largest-set-experiments-its-new-observatory
☮
Moderator
Wednesday - February 8th 2023 6:30AM MST
PS: Mr. Ganderson's son could probably help out my attempt at Pin Yin to make the sounds for "Davey Jones locker". The Chinese language is missing quite a few sounds we have and vice versa. They have way too many sh and c or ch sounds to make it easy to pronounce everything.
It's the tones, however, that are the real stumbling block, for someone my age and not good at languages to begin with.
It's the tones, however, that are the real stumbling block, for someone my age and not good at languages to begin with.
Moderator
Wednesday - February 8th 2023 6:25AM MST
PS: Mr. Smith, haha! Did the link go to the right post page?
Good point, Alarmist. It should have been red and gold with a big yellow star. I wonder whether Bai Dien would have still let it sail across the country like that.
Yes, in any serious war with the Chinese, we'd go broke early on, but also have to call for cease fires regularly... in order to wait for shipments of parts ... from China.
Good point, Alarmist. It should have been red and gold with a big yellow star. I wonder whether Bai Dien would have still let it sail across the country like that.
Yes, in any serious war with the Chinese, we'd go broke early on, but also have to call for cease fires regularly... in order to wait for shipments of parts ... from China.
The Alarmist
Wednesday - February 8th 2023 1:50AM MST
PS
BTW, that balloon had to come down so that HAARP could be used on Turkiye and Syria with less threat of Chicom detection. Ya know, plausible deniability and what-not.
BTW, that balloon had to come down so that HAARP could be used on Turkiye and Syria with less threat of Chicom detection. Ya know, plausible deniability and what-not.
The Alarmist
Wednesday - February 8th 2023 1:46AM MST
PS
Using a $300 million aircraft that costs $70,000 per hour to operate to fire a $380,000 missile to bring down a balloon is a spectacularly unmanly precursor to how WW3 is going to play out. Our tranny-loving overlords have shot the wad prematurely.
I figured the Chinese were trolling us, but I would have been certain of it if it had been a Red balloon.
Cue Nena.... auf Englisch, bitte ... 99 Red Luftballoons.
Mickey Dolenz’s Locker ¿
Mike Nesmith’s Locker ¿
Peter Tork’s Locker ¿
Hmmm ... I guess I’ll have to daydream an answer... Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Using a $300 million aircraft that costs $70,000 per hour to operate to fire a $380,000 missile to bring down a balloon is a spectacularly unmanly precursor to how WW3 is going to play out. Our tranny-loving overlords have shot the wad prematurely.
I figured the Chinese were trolling us, but I would have been certain of it if it had been a Red balloon.
Cue Nena.... auf Englisch, bitte ... 99 Red Luftballoons.
Mickey Dolenz’s Locker ¿
Mike Nesmith’s Locker ¿
Peter Tork’s Locker ¿
Hmmm ... I guess I’ll have to daydream an answer... Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 7th 2023 6:40PM MST
PS: In case you get different results in your location...
https://i.ibb.co/zZpbtrM/Big-Nigger-Omelette.png
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https://i.ibb.co/zZpbtrM/Big-Nigger-Omelette.png
☮
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 7th 2023 6:36PM MST
PS: You're welcome, Mr. Moderator,
I like your giant tow hook idea too. The clowns in the pentagram wasted an opportunity to do something truly spectacular.
https://i.ibb.co/XsMjVM0/Black-History-Mumf.jpg
A little more evidence that Google does (at least occasionally) read the comments...
https://www.google.com/search?q="Big+Nigger+Omelette"
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I like your giant tow hook idea too. The clowns in the pentagram wasted an opportunity to do something truly spectacular.
https://i.ibb.co/XsMjVM0/Black-History-Mumf.jpg
A little more evidence that Google does (at least occasionally) read the comments...
https://www.google.com/search?q="Big+Nigger+Omelette"
☮
Moderator
Tuesday - February 7th 2023 4:53PM MST
PS: Thank you for that map, Adam. I spent 5 minutes looking for just that to no avail.
Yes, that'd have been entertaining all right. Failing that, get a souped-up banner-towing plane (maybe a turbine Thrush or Ag-Cat), with an extra-long rope and try to hook a line. You might need some bungies in there to soften the impact loading. Then go full power and bring it on home. A Cub Scout troops with pellet guns could have at it on the ground.
Yes, that'd have been entertaining all right. Failing that, get a souped-up banner-towing plane (maybe a turbine Thrush or Ag-Cat), with an extra-long rope and try to hook a line. You might need some bungies in there to soften the impact loading. Then go full power and bring it on home. A Cub Scout troops with pellet guns could have at it on the ground.
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 7th 2023 4:36PM MST
PS: Good evening, Mr. Moderator,
"I'm pretty sure these "students" and "researchers" can get a lot more important information for the CCP than a big white balloon sailing across freaking Montana."
I think the CCP is just trying to figure out the release date for Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 9. (Crafty Bastards!)
https://i0.wp.com/www.overlookhorizon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/upper-air-map-1024x791.gif?ssl=1
I think it would have been more entertaining if they captured the Balloon with a Giant Net.
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"I'm pretty sure these "students" and "researchers" can get a lot more important information for the CCP than a big white balloon sailing across freaking Montana."
I think the CCP is just trying to figure out the release date for Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 9. (Crafty Bastards!)
https://i0.wp.com/www.overlookhorizon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/upper-air-map-1024x791.gif?ssl=1
I think it would have been more entertaining if they captured the Balloon with a Giant Net.
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Hi, Mr. Smith. HAARP uses weather control as its cover story. The top secret truth is that it is an earthquake machine that beams directed energy through the earth but does little in the atmosphere, which the cover story purports is what it is supposed to do.
That’s why they need a $300,000,000 jet fighter costing $70,000 per hour to operate to fire a $380,000 missile to keep the Chinese in the dark about the true purpose for HAARP.